Afghan Connection supports education and sport in Afghanistan. It was set up in 2002 and has touched the lives of more than 280,000 people. The charity has funded 46 school constructions for more than 75,000 children and is working to ensure that every child has access to education.

Friday, 10 October 2014

A last minute reprieve...

We checked in to UN for the 2pm flight only to be told
that the weather was again against us and we would delay to see if it improved.
Meanwhile the skies over Kabul grew dark and heavy and it seemed we would never
fly.The entire waitingroom was praying
to their various gods to clear the skies over Faizabad! With just 15 minutes to
go before cancellation, they said they would give it a go but could not
guarantee landing.

The whole way there I looked down on to a thick carpet of
cloud and feared the worst. But as we approached Faizabad, there was a small
opening in the clouds and we saw the runway and as we touched down, we erupted
into applause...a miracle! The trip was saved. Haji and Quaduz were waiting as
they have been every time over the last years of travel and it was so great to
see them and to be back in Faizabad.

The sun was setting over snow capped
mountains andit was too late to drive
to Worsaj, so we are staying in a guest house overlooking the river. Perfectly
bizarre... we are the only guests in this echoing, elaborate building which
comes complete with cavernous wedding hall. It is all very ornate and very
cold... not quite what I had expected and a far cry from the village houses!

Supper with the drivers in a huge dining hall in which we
felt rather small and lost. Tomorrow at last to Worsaj.

Inspired by a gap year working in rural India, Sarah Fane decided to switch from her degree course in French and Latin to study medicine at Bristol University. Her elective was spent in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan, where she met with the Guildford Surgical Team. She returned with them the following year to Pakistan, and worked from a Mujahideen border camp, seeing female patients from the surrounding refugee camps.
Ten years later, having married, had four children, and done various in hospital jobs between children, she was asked to go to the Panjshir Valley, Afghanistan, to assess a mother and child clinic. The visit and the people she met inspired her to set up this charity.